During the past several decades, mountain-top removal-valley fill procedures have been widely adopted to extract coal from the central Appalachians. The procedures destroy diverse, old-growth deciduous forest, which provides habitat for some of the most diverse ecosystems in North America. Reclaimed areas seldom show the net primary production, carbon storage or nutrient cycles characteristic of undisturbed landscape. Adjacent stream ecosystems are buried by spoil materials, which produce alkaline runoff, rich is dissolved solids, including metals such as selenium. There are no documented examples of successful restoration of stream ecosystem function from reclaimation, and the disturbance effects poliferate downstream into undisturbed areas. The procedure has received widespread, negative press coverage, yet their is little scientific documentation of these effects. This session will bring together terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem scientists to discuss what is known and what can be done to ameliorate the impacts of mountain-top removal mining, in the face of growing national dependence on coal as an energy source.